TUBULARIAD.E : KUDENDRIUM. 47 



Tees, J. Hogg, Esq. Found on the shore of Dublin Bay, Tem- 

 pleton. Found sparingly around the coast of Ireland, generally 

 investing shells, W. Thompson. Scarborough, Mr. Bean. Cornwall 

 coast, Couch. Devonshire, Mrs. Griffiths. 



Polypidom rooted by tortuous wrinkled fibres, confervoid, rising 

 to the height of six inches, of a brownish horn colour, and rather 

 solid texture, flexible, smooth, the shoots filiform, of the thickness of 

 common sewing-thread, formed of a single tube, pinnatedly branched, 

 the branches alternate, short, erecto-patent, ringed at their origins, 

 with a plain terminal aperture. The stem is not ringed, in general, 

 either above or below the insertion of the branches, but sometimes 

 there is a ringed space there, and sometimes in the interspaces. 

 The polypes are well figured by Ellis, who says, " I have often met 

 with specimens of this coralline that have been regularly branched 

 in a doubly pinnated form ; and when I was at Emsworth, on the 

 borders of Sussex, I found a specimen of this Tubularia, with its 

 ovaries placed in a circle round the lower part of its heads." 



I have had small and imperfect specimens of Thoa halecina sent 

 me as E. ramosum ; nor is it impossible to mistake the variety of 

 Coryne pusilla which infests Tubularia indivisa for it. 



Lamouroux and Blainville make of Ellis' figure in Plate XVI. 

 their Tub. trichoides, and they restrict the name ramosa to that 

 figured in Plate XVII. ; but Ellis himself knew no difference. They 

 certainly appear, on a first glance, very distinct. The latter, which 

 is of a thinner texture and yellowish colour, does not rise to the 

 same height, and is irregularly branched, the branches arising prin- 

 cipally from near the base ; but there is no difference in their 

 structure, and I distrust a character drawn from habit only in these 

 polypidoms. 



I cannot reconcile the description given by 0. Fabricius of his 

 Fistulana ramosa, either with this or the preceding species. The 

 Eudendrium ramosum, so beautifully illustrated by Van Beneden, 

 seems also distinct ; for in Van Beneden's species the apex of the 

 branchlets is enlarged into a sort of funnel-shaped cell, within which 

 the polype is partially retractile. 



